It was impressive enough when toymakers found a way to make remote control helicopters small and safe enough to fly around indoors. But their miniaturization efforts continue on as toymaker Silverlit introduces the Nano-Falcon, an RC chopper so tiny that Guinness has officially granted it the world record for smallest IR-controlled helicopter.
     |
juan pablo montoya crash chardon high school shooting mark martin cleveland news daytona race the cutting edge fox 8 news
Sheryl Ubelacker, The Canadian Press
Published Wednesday, May 22, 2013 2:01PM EDT
TORONTO -- Health Canada has issued a recall for a number of adult novelty products containing small, powerful magnets that can be swallowed or inhaled by children.
BuckyBalls novelty sets contain a number of rare earth element magnets many times more powerful than traditional magnets.
Some children have needed emergency surgery to remove swallowed magnets that can attract one another while moving through the intestines.
The magnets can trap intestinal tissue between them and cause life-threatening blockages or tearing.
Distributors of BuckyBalls are voluntarily recalling the products after a Health Canada risk assessment found they pose a danger to human health and safety.
The federal department says consumers should stop using the magnet sets and contact their municipality for instructions on safe disposal or recycling.
"Canadians expect that products they find on store shelves will be safe," Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said in a statement Wednesday. "It's clear that some products containing small, powerful magnets pose a danger to children so we are taking action to have them removed from the marketplace."
The adult entertainment products typically involve puzzle working, sculpture building, mental stimulation or stress relief.
Online advisory: http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/recall-alert-rappel-avis/hc-sc/2013/31619a-eng.php
paulina gretzky paulina gretzky david bowie elvis presley elvis presley Pretty Little Liars Rob Parker
May 22, 2013 ? Dinosaurs are often thought of as large, fierce animals, but new research highlights a previously overlooked diversity of small dinosaurs. In the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, a team of paleontologists from the University of Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum, Cleveland Museum of Natural History and University of Calgary have described a new dinosaur, the smallest plant-eating dinosaur species known from Canada. Albertadromeus syntarsus was identified from a partial hind leg, and other skeletal elements, that indicate it was a speedy runner. Approximately 1.6 m (5 ft) long, it weighed about 16 kg (30 lbs), comparable to a large turkey.
Albertadromeus lived in what is now southern Alberta in the Late Cretaceous, about 77 million years ago. Albertadromeus syntarsus means "Alberta runner with fused foot bones." Unlike its much larger ornithopod cousins, the duckbilled dinosaurs, its two fused lower leg bones would have made it a fast, agile two-legged runner. This animal is the smallest known plant-eating dinosaur in its ecosystem, and researchers hypothesize that it used its speed to avoid predation by the many species of meat-eating dinosaurs that lived at the same time.
Albertadromeus was discovered in 2009 by study co-author David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum as part an on-going collaboration with Michael Ryan of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History to investigate the evolution of dinosaurs in the Late Cretaceous of North America. The known dinosaur diversity of this time period is dominated by large bodied plant-eating dinosaurs.
Why are so few small-bodied dinosaurs known from North America some 77 million years ago? Smaller animals are less likely to be preserved than larger ones, because their bones are more delicate and are often destroyed before being fossilized. "We know from our previous research that there are preservational biases against the bones of these small dinosaurs," said Caleb Brown of the University of Toronto, lead author of the study. "We are now starting to uncover this hidden diversity, and although skeletons of these small ornithopods are both rare and fragmentary, our study shows that these dinosaurs were more abundant in their ecosystems than previously thought."
The reason for our relatively poor understanding of these small dinosaurs is a combination of the taphonomic processes (those related to decay and preservation) described above, and biases in the way that material has been collected. Small skeletons are more prone to destruction by carnivores, scavengers and weathering processes, so fewer small animals are available to become fossils and smaller animals are often more difficult to find and identify than those of larger animals.
"Albertadromeus may have been close to the bottom of the dinosaur food chain but without dinosaurs like it you'd not have giants like T. rex," said Michael Ryan. "Our understanding of the structure of dinosaur ecosystems is dependent on the fossils that have been preserved. Fragmentary, but important, specimens like that of Albertadromeus suggest that we are only beginning to understand the shape of dinosaur diversity and the structure of their communities."
"You can imagine such small dinosaurs filling the niche of animals such as rabbits and being major, but relatively inconspicuous, members of their ecological community" said Anthony Russell of the University of Calgary.
Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/eVEXRoxbwNA/130522142028.htm
tcu dr. oz heart attack grill las vegas the heart attack grill joe kennedy iii joseph kennedy iii ghost hunters
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) ? The U.S. and several key allies sought Wednesday a strategy to end Syria's civil war, their united efforts unable at the moment to stem the Assad regime's military gains and Washington still unwilling to join those providing the rebels with lethal military aid.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry allowed that President Barack Obama won't send American troops to Syria. But he made clear that more aid to the rebels would be coming if the regime refuses to cooperate with an international effort ? to be put together in June in Geneva ? to form a transitional government.
"In the event that we can't find that way forward, in the event that the Assad regime is unwilling to negotiate Geneva in good faith, we will also talk about our continued support, growing support for opposition in order to permit them to continue to fight for the freedom of their country," Kerry said.
Obama "has also made it clear that he intends to support the broad-based opposition, and he has taken no options off the table with respect to how that support may be provided, or what kind of support that might be," he told a news conference with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh before a meeting between Kerry and the foreign ministers of 10 close American partners.
Wednesday's meeting comes after several weeks of military gains by the Assad regime, including the reopening of a key southern highway to Jordan and a push into a strategic rebel-held western town over the weekend.
Such successes will likely harden Assad's position in any peace talks. The Syrian leader has said that he will not step down as a result of transition talks, and that Syria's political future must be determined in elections.
Kerry and the other top diplomats met behind closed doors for more than two hours Wednesday evening in Amman to discuss how to change the momentum.
A Jordanian-based Western diplomat, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said the Assad regime was proving more resilient than expected. He said his government was concluding the rebels might not be able to defeat it without greater and more direct assistance.
Some of that new resilience in the Syrian regime comes from help from Iran and the militant Hezbollah movement.
Kerry warned those regime allies to stop providing assistance to Assad, saying such activity "perpetuates the regime's campaign of terror against its own people."
"We have to hope that Bashar Assad and his regime will understand the meaning of that and the Iranians and others will understand the meaning of that," Kerry said. "The president will keep those options available to him short of American forces on ground."
To that end, an administration official in Washington said the White House would soon notify Congress about an expanded package of non-lethal assistance to the Syrian rebels.
Details of the aid package are still being finalized, according to the official, who was not authorized to discuss the expanded aid publicly and insisted on anonymity.
But the package is likely to include armored vehicles and communications gear, two U.S. officials said. It is not expected to include night vision goggles or body armor, underscoring the cautious approach the U.S. has taken regarding military-style assistance to the opposition.
As Kerry and his counterparts arrived at the meeting venue in Amman, about 250 pro-Assad demonstrators blocked the main entrance.
The protesters, a mix of Jordanians and Syrians, chanted "Death to America," and, "Go home, Kerry we don't want you here."
A key battle has been waged since Sunday over control of the western town of Qusair, which had been in rebel hands for more than a year. Qusair is located along a land corridor that links two Assad strongholds, the capital Damascus and the heartland of Assad's Alawite sect along the Mediterranean coast.
Syrian troops backed by fighters from Lebanon's Shiite Muslim Hezbollah militia have pushed into Qusair since the start of the offensive. Underlining its importance, Syria's main opposition alliance, the Syrian National Coalition, on Wednesday urged rebel fighters from across Syria to converge on the town to help defend it.
Opposition fighters in Qusair were holding out Wednesday, but appeared to be under increasing strain as government tanks and artillery pounded the town and warplanes bombed it from the sky.
The battle for Qusair has also raised Hezbollah's profile in Syria's civil war. The Lebanese militia, one of Assad's staunchest allies, initially tried to play down its involvement to avoid political backlash at home, but could no longer do so after dozens of its fighters were killed in Qusair this week, followed by funerals drawing large crowds in Lebanon.
Most of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims back the Syria's predominantly Sunni opposition, while Shiites support the Assad regime, which is dominated by members of his minority Alawite sect, an off-shoot of Shiite Islam.
The battle in Qusair, six miles from the Lebanese border, was accompanied by new sectarian clashes in Lebanon's northern port city of Tripoli. Supporters and opponents of Assad have traded gunfire every day since Sunday, leaving 10 people dead and more than 100 wounded, Lebanese security officials said.
At the news conference, Kerry and Judeh both stressed that the goal is to get the Syrian government and opposition into political transition talks that could begin as early as next month in Geneva.
Without that, violence will continue and the death toll from the conflict will continue to rise, he said.
"Let's assume there is no Geneva 2," Kerry said. "Let's assume we don't come together as community of nations to try to find a peaceful process."
"What will happen? What will happen is an absolute guarantee that violence will continue and the world will be standing on the sidelines doing nothing constructive to try to end that violence. That's unacceptable," he said.
The comments came a day after a Senate panel voted to provide weapons to the rebels, the first time American lawmakers have endorsed the aggressive U.S. military step of arming the opposition.
With a degree of trepidation, the Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 for a bill that would provide lethal assistance and military training to vetted rebel groups, and would slap sanctions on anyone ??" such as Iran or Russia ??" who sells oil or transfers arms to the Assad regime. The measure would also establish a $250 million fund to aid in the transition if and when Assad falls.
___
Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Julie Pace and Matthew Lee in Washington and Jamal Halaby in Amman contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kerry-us-allies-ready-step-aid-rebels-150432436.html
Bourne Legacy Chad Johnson London 2012 Soccer Olympics closing ceremony PGA Championship 2012 John Witherspoon george michael
You saw the news yesterday. The Xbox One was everywhere
| |
Tom Cruise ryan reynolds Star Trek: The Original Series Carlton Morgan Freeman Dead Stand Up to Cancer Azarenka
FARGO, N.D. (AP) -- The president of the North Dakota Board of Higher Education said Monday he's not sure if the group gave a fair hearing to plans on tuition increases and wants to revisit the idea.
The board approved a plan May 10 that would give colleges the option to raise tuition at various rates, from a low maximum level of 2.13 percent at Lake Region State College to a high maximum mark of 6.63 percent at Williston State. Board members said they liked the flexibility it offered the schools.
The plan passed by a 7-1 vote over another option favored by Chancellor Hamid Shirvani that would keep tuition hikes between 2.18 percent and 4.76 percent.
Board President Duaine Espegard, a retired banker, said Monday he had more time to crunch the numbers after the last meeting and decided it was worth more discussion. A special meeting scheduled Thursday at NDSU is meant to take a second look.
"Upon reflection, when I got home after that meeting, I think about this and say, 'Is that fair?'" Espegard said. "And because this stuff is kind of complicated, I'm not so sure everybody probably fully understood it. I didn't until I took another look."
The state Legislature approved a $900 million higher education budget ? a nearly 12 percent increase over the last biennium ? while sending a message to the board and university leaders to keep tuition costs down. But the funding does not cover nearly $32 million in inflationary costs, which could be covered under the approved plan if colleges max out their tuition limits.
The plan backed by Shirvani would require six of the 11 colleges to find cost savings to meet their budgets, leaving a shortfall of $3.3 million at the University of North Dakota and $2.4 million at North Dakota State University.
"We're not trying to cut anybody," Espegard said. "It's not about efficiency or anything like that. It's doing what's best for the students."
Administration officials from NDSU and UND declined to comment about the Thursday meeting.
Robbie Lauf, president of the NDSU student body, said Monday that he likes the idea of a 2.5 percent tuition cap, but not at the expense of jeopardizing on funding for a new equity model approved by the Legislature.
"You get to the point where you have to deal with reality," Lauf said. "If we have to spend equity dollars on something other than equity, what's the point?"
Tuition was scheduled for debate the morning of the May 10 meeting but was pushed into the afternoon after a long discussion about Shirvani's job performance that wasn't on the original agenda. Shirvani said the meeting became so stretched out that "I don't think I did a good job of explaining" his tuition model.
"I think we should do a little bit better at showing our goodwill and support for students and their families," Shirvani said. "Particularly when you consider that the student debt is very high. They are coming out with debt that is the cost of a house or mortgage. We should give the student a break."
Shirvani said her heard from "a lot of people," including lawmakers and parents of students, who were not happy about the tuition plan approved by the board. Lauf said he has heard no complaints and was surprised to find out about the special meeting.
"I guess I'm curious why they are bringing it up again," Lauf said. "I have been calling around and some board members were just as surprised as we were."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/board-look-nd-tuition-rate-140946588.html
ray j anthony shadid gary carter this means war bobby brown suzanne somers colbert
The network said it replaced the comedy with a rerun on Monday out of sensitivity to victims of the deadly tornado in Oklahoma.
Billy Gardell and Melissa McCarthy are shown in a scene from the sitcom 'Mike & Molly.'
Michael Ansell/CBS/AP
EnlargeCBS has taken the scheduled season-ending episode of "Mike?&?Molly" off the air because its plot line revolved around a tornado threatening the couple.
Skip to next paragraph' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
The network said it replaced the comedy with a rerun on Monday out of sensitivity to victims of the deadly tornado in Oklahoma.
CBS said the show's season finale will air "at an appropriate date." The plot had the two lead characters confessing important news to one another as a tornado threatens Chicago.
Emergency crews combed the sticks and rubble remains of an Oklahoma City suburb Tuesday morning less than a day after a massive tornado slammed through the community, flattening homes and demolishing an elementary school. At least 24 people were killed, including at least seven children, and those numbers were expected to climb.
As the sun rose over the shattered community of Moore, the state medical examiner's office cut the estimated death toll by more than half.
Spokeswoman Amy Elliot said she believes some victims were counted twice in the early chaos of the storm that struck Monday afternoon. Downed communication lines and problems sharing information with officers exacerbated the problem, she said.
"It was a very eventful night," Elliot said. "I truly expect that they'll find more today."
Authorities initially said as many as 51 people were dead, including 20 children.
New search-and-rescue teams moved in as dawn broke Tuesday, taking over from the 200 or so emergency responders who scoured the neighborhood all night with a helicopter shining a spotlight from above to aid their search.
Fire Chief Gary Bird said the fresh teams would search the whole community at least two more times to ensure that no survivors ? or victims ? were missed. They were painting an 'X' on each structure to note it had been checked.
Reporters Nomaan Merchant and Tim Talley reported from Moore, Okla.
Waldo Canyon fire nba finals K Michelle roger clemens multiple sclerosis falling skies rodney king
By Andrew Osborn
LONDON (Reuters) - Google Inc's tax affairs will come under renewed scrutiny in Britain on Wednesday when the leader of the opposition Labor party accuses the Internet company of wrongly going to "extraordinary lengths" to avoid paying tax.
In comments designed to politically outflank Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of next month's G8 summit on what has become a high-profile issue, Ed Miliband, the Labor leader, will say he is disappointed that Google pays so little tax.
"I can't be the only person here who feels disappointed that such a great company as Google ... would be reduced to arguing that when it employs thousands of people in Britain, makes billions of pounds of revenue in Britain, it pays just a fraction of that in tax," Miliband will tell a Google event held just outside London.
"So when Google does great things for the world, as it does, I applaud you, but when Google goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying its taxes, I think it's wrong."
Google's methods of minimizing its British tax bill have made front page headlines in Britain and angered voters at a time when their own incomes are being squeezed, putting pressure on politicians to be seen to be taking action.
British lawmakers have accused Google of using "smoke and mirrors" to avoid paying tax and the firm's Northern Europe boss, Matt Brittin, was called back to testify to MPs after a Reuters investigation showed the company employed staff in sales roles in London, even though he had told the committee in November its British staff were not "selling" to UK clients.
But Cameron, who has placed global tax regulation at the heart of the G8 summit he is chairing in June, has been coy about singling Google out for criticism, preferring to talk more generally about corporate tax avoidance.
Miliband, whose party is ahead of Cameron's Conservatives by up to 10 percentage points in opinion polls, criticized Cameron for not taking a tougher line.
"Google is said to have paid only 10 million pounds in corporation tax in the UK between 2006 and 2011, despite revenues of 11.9 billion pounds," Miliband wrote separately in a blog for The Huffington Post UK on Tuesday.
"I was surprised the prime minister failed to raise this when (Google Executive Chairman) Eric Schmidt attended the business advisory council's meeting." Cameron was too distracted by other issues, he said.
Britain will host a meeting of G8 leaders on June 17-18 at a golf resort in Northern Ireland and Cameron said in April that tax compliance was one of his G8 priorities.
Google is one of several high-profile companies to face far greater scrutiny of its tax affairs in recent months. Apple Inc., Microsoft and Amazon.com have all been in the spotlight at a time of weak economic growth, high levels of public debt and squeezed household incomes in Britain.
(Editing by Mike Collett-White)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-opposition-party-leader-says-google-tax-behavior-230950441.html
Jeff Gordon Test Drive Tamar Braxton Veronica Mars Pope John Paul II Galaxy S4 google reader carnival cruise
Just as we knew it would, MSI has formally announced pricing for its newfangled GX70 and GX60 gaming laptops -- the world's first machines to ship with AMD's Richland A10-5750M (2.5GHz - 3.5GHz) within. The 17.3-inch GX70 offers up a 1,920 x 1,080 native display resolution, AMD's Radeon HD 8970M on the graphics front, a 750GB hard drive, 8GB of DDR3 memory, a Blu-ray Disc drive, Bluetooth 4.0 and Killer's E2200 networking technology. You'll also get a SDXC card slot, HDMI 1.4 socket, 720p webcam, a 9-cell battery -- likely good for about 89 seconds of use -- a backlit keyboard and a frame that's 2.17-inches thick and 8.6 pounds. If none of that frightens you, you can plan on parting ways with $1,399.99 to call one your own. The (slightly) more petite GX60 boasts a 15.6-inch panel (still 1080p, though), a 7.7 pound frame and a $1,299.99 price tag. Otherwise, the specifications are essentially identical from its big brother, and both should be shipping any moment now.
Filed under: Laptops
Source: MSI
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/WbXDy8_YYpE/
nba finals K Michelle roger clemens multiple sclerosis falling skies rodney king Webb Simpson
Relatively few business printers can print at up to tabloid size (11-by-17), and the HP LaserJet Enterprise 700 Printer M712dn is a welcome addition to that club, bringing very good paper handling, low running costs, and good speed. Although its output quality could be better, the M712dn is a good choice for high-volume black-and-white printing, including at tabloid size.
Unlike most of the tabloid printers we've tested in the past few years, the M712dn is a monochrome printer. It measures 15.4 by 22.4 by 23.4 inches (HWD) and weighs 85 pounds, too big to share a desk with, and you'll want at least two people to help move it into place. The M712dn has a 600-sheet standard paper capacity, between two 250-sheet input trays and 100-sheet multipurpose feeder. (One of the two 250-sheet trays, plus the feeder, can handle tabloid-sized paper.) An abundance of feeders, extra trays, and floor-standing cabinets are available as accessories. This printer has an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper. It has a maximum monthly duty cycle of 100,000 pages, making it suitable for reasonably heavy-duty printing.
The M712dn is ePrint enabled; HP assigns an e-mail address to the printer (which you can later customize), you can send documents to that address, and the printer will automatically print them out (as long as it's connected to the Internet).
The M712dn is the middle model of three related printers. The M712n ($1,899 direct) is the simplex version, lacking the M712dn's auto-duplexer (and its Energy Star cred). The M712xh ($2,899 direct) adds a secure hard disk and a 500-sheet paper tray in addition to all the M712dn's features.
The M712dn offers USB and Ethernet (including Gigabit Ethernet) connectivity. I tested it over the Ethernet connection with a PC running Windows Vista. As for drivers, this printer has PCL plus HP's PostScript emulation, though only the PCL driver installs by default.
Print Speed
I timed the M712dn on the latest version of our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing), at 9.9 effective pages per minute (ppm), decent for its rated speed of 40 pages per minute?which should be about the speed you would get if you were to print text only. (Our test suite combines text pages, graphics pages, and pages with mixed content.) It's a respectable speed, though many mono lasers are faster?the Editors' Choice Dell B5460dn , for example, zipped through our tests at 18.7 ppm.
However, none of the mono lasers we've tested in recent years other than the M712dn can print at tabloid size. I recently timed the Editors' Choice Xerox Phaser 7100/N, a tabloid color printer rated at 30 pages per minute, at 7.9 ppm on the same tests?though it output most of the pages in color. I clocked another tabloid-sized color printer, the
Output Quality
Overall output quality for the M712dn was slightly below par for a mono laser, with sub-par text, average graphics, and typical photo quality. With text there was a tendency for some letter pairs to be run together at larger sizes than usual, but even sub-par laser text is fine for typical business use. Just make a point of avoiding smaller type sizes.
In a couple of illustrations, the printer had trouble rendering distinctions between slightly different shades. Though the printer is otherwise fine for printing basic PowerPoint presentations or charts in a report, at least for in-house use, you'd have to be careful that different sections in a pie or bar chart, for instance, are distinguishable from each other.
Photo quality is suitable for printing out recognizable images from Web pages, and perhaps for photos in client newsletters, depending on how picky you and the client are. A couple of prints showed mild banding (a pattern of faint striations), most showed dithering (graininess), and there was some loss of detail in both bright and dark areas.
Running costs for the M712 are a low 1.3 cents per page, beating out the Dell 7130cdn's cost per monochrome page of 1.7 cents and the Xerox 7100/N's 2.2 cents.
As a monochrome laser, the M712dn offers good paper handling, including the ability to print at tabloid size, low running costs, and decent speed. Its output quality is good enough for typical in-house business use. The Editors' Choice Xerox Phaser 7100/N has a smaller paper capacity, higher running costs, and lacks an auto-duplexer, though one is available on the Xerox 7100/DN ($1,800). It sells at a lower price, though, its output quality is better than the M712dn's, and it can print not just monochrome but color at tabloid size.
If your business isn't too picky about output quality, doesn't require color, and you need to print in high volume, the HP LaserJet Enterprise 700 Printer M712dn could well be your preferred tabloid-sized workhorse printer. It has a relatively high monthly duty cycle, very low running costs (allowing you to recoup your relatively large investment over time), and good paper capacity; you can keep one tray loaded with tabloid-sized paper, the other with letter or legal, and the multipurpose tray free for other paper types or sizes.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/K0BNwSTyq6I/0,2817,2418724,00.asp
brandon phillips summerfest summerfest fidel castro rick santorum ozzie guillen castro comments phish
In recent months I've had the honor of being part of the Medius Working Group, described as "a disparate group of activists who seek to honor their late friend Spencer Cox, an activist keenly aware of the unique needs and concerns of AIDS-generation survivors." Last week in New York we held a large community forum titled "Is This My Beautiful Life? Perspectives From Survivors of the AIDS Generation."
The panel discussion that got the night going was remarkable, and a video of the event will be posted online soon. My fellow panelists (pictured above, from left to right) included Jesus Aguais, Dr. Mark Brennan-Ing, Dr. L. Jeannine Bookhardt-Murray, Jim Eigo and Joe Jervis. The evening was hosted by the Tony Award-winning star of Angels in America Stephen Spinella and moderated by Dr. Perry N. Halkitis.
Here are my opening remarks:
This all started for many of us on that Tuesday morning in December. Three days before, Spencer was making a seemingly strong recovery, and we thought he was out of the woods. Then everything went to shit, and we all rushed to that hospital none of us had ever heard of at the very tip of Manhattan. Spencer Cox was one of the youngest of ACT UP's alumni, and his death at only 44 sent a shockwave to all of us, not just the current and former activists but our generation, our AIDS generation, men and women, positive and negative.A huge and largely healthy discussion ensued, with long phone calls, dinners with friends we hadn't seen in recent years, Facebook threads, blog postings and even a long article in a Sunday New York Times. A kind of bubble had burst. What did this say about us? How are we doing now? How are we treating each other? Is there a community that even cares about us?
The memorial was beautiful. It was funny, campy, moving, a little trashy at times, tearful and even sexy (thank you, David Drake). But most of all it felt communal, in a way many of us miss dearly. After a short break some of Spencer's friends formed the Medius Working Group to see if there were ways to highlight the issues he often raised in his final years. TAG is working with Dr. Judith Rabkin at Columbia University on a possible study, hoping to survey a couple hundred former AIDS activists in an attempt to quantify how we're doing. Alan Klein has organized some ACT UP alumni that hope to pull off a series of more regular reunions structured as social events.
And tonight is for some much-needed venting. For purists who always want narrowly defined discussion points with clearly defined goals, tonight is probably not your night. It's too early in this process to say assuredly "these are our issues."
I'm sure a lot of the discussion will be about our challenges and grievances. I know I've got some to share. As I said at Spencer's memorial, many of us in some way have unprocessed grief, or guilt, or an overwhelming sense of abandonment from a gay community that turned its back on us and increasingly stigmatizes us, all in an attempt to pretend that AIDS isn't its problem anymore. Many of us see our national gay rights groups and our gay foundations and big gay money focused entirely on the feel-good battle for marriage equality. As worthy as that battle is, aren't we shooting ourselves in the foot with this singular focus? Silence may no longer equal death on the scale it once did, but it's certainly feeding an alarming rise of HIV infections in young gay men, especially in apparently easy-to-ignore young gay men of color. Where are they in these happy marriage pictures?
So, yes, let's discuss these feelings of abandonment, or unprocessed grief, or loneliness, or addiction. But let's also recognize our strengths, what we've overcome, our resilience. I'm fascinated by the brilliant work of Dr. Ron Stall from the University of Pittsburgh, who has been studying the health of gay men for many years. He writes a lot about syndemics, a group of epidemics interacting synergistically to lower the overall health profile of a population. So he studies the burdens and fallouts a lot, including the self-loathing we were taught as kids, or living through the plague years. But what amazes him the most is our resilience through all this. It's the glass-half-full metaphor. Yes, let's examine the empty half and the reasons behind it, but let's also acknowledge our pool of strengths. Where does that resilience come from, and can we build on it?
Thanks for turning out tonight. I'm really honored to be on this panel and hope the conversation we start here with all of you will continue in the months ahead.
?
Follow Peter Staley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@peterstaley
"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-staley/is-this-my-beautiful-life_b_3268402.html
Airport Terminal easter bunny easter april fools pranks atlanta braves Happy Easter Game Of Thrones Season 3
When deciding to sell a piece of San Francisco real estate, there are certain things you must disclose about the property to the buyer before the sale can go through.
Disclosure laws are put in place to protect the buyer from unknowingly purchasing defective property. Not disclosing certain information about the property can jeopardize the sale, or worse, invite a lawsuit.
This has become more of an issue lately as some sellers are tempted to gloss over deficiencies in the home they are selling in order to try to get a higher sales price. ?In fact, a recent poll of real estate agents showed that 75% of agents ranked non-disclosure among the ?top three current and future issues.?
What You May Need To Disclose
The main items that need to be disclosed are any defects with the home. This includes, but is not limited to, plumbing problems, water leaks, cracks in the foundation, insect infestations and toxic materials in the home ? such as lead, asbestos, carbon monoxide or mold.
Be sure to fully disclose anything that may be pertinent to the buyer before purchase. Some disclosure laws include reporting issues with neighbors and whether the home has a criminal or notorious past.
If you are unsure about some information regarding your real estate, one option would be to state that you do not know that specific information. Remember though, if you knowingly withhold information, it may cause the sale to fall through or could be used against you in a lawsuit.
Does It Make Sense To Have A Pre-Inspection Done?
Sellers can also have their home inspected prior to placing the property on the market to prevent any surprises of unknown problems with the home. This way, defects can be fixed before listing the property, and the disclosure form can state the problem has been fixed. Buyers will almost surely want an inspection prior to closing, and a pre-inspection may suffice.
Disclosing information does not mean the seller needs to fix the problem. Any disclosed problems with the real estate can become a negotiation point. Remember, the most important thing is to be honest about any known issues with the property.
Real estate disclosure laws may be different depending on the state in which you live. The best way to know what you need to disclose in your area is to check with your trusted real estate agent or property attorney and discuss any potential property issues with them before you fill out the seller disclosure form.
Source: http://michaelminson.com/know-your-real-estate-disclosure-laws-before-you-sell-your-home/
vikings Colin Powell noaa Jessica Ridgeway ipad mini Kevin Krim Autumn Pasquale
LAS VEGAS (AP) ? The last time O.J. Simpson was in a Las Vegas courtroom, he stood next to defense attorney Yale Galanter before being handcuffed and hauled off to prison for up to 33 years.
On Monday, the former football hero returns to Clark County District Court with a different set of lawyers hoping to convince a judge that Galanter shouldn't have been handling his armed robbery-kidnapping case ? that the lawyer who was paid nearly $700,000 for Simpson's defense had a personal interest in preventing himself from being identified as a witness to the crimes and so misled Simpson that the former football star deserves a new trial.
"To me, the claims are solid. I don't know how the court can't grant relief," said Patricia Palm, the Simpson appeals lawyer who produced a 94-page petition dissecting Galanter's promises, payments and performance as Simpson's lawyer in the trial that ended with a jury finding Simpson and a co-defendant guilty of 12 felonies.
Galanter declined to comment ahead of his is scheduled testimony.
Of the 22 allegations of conflict-of-interest and ineffective counsel that Palm raised, Clark County District Court Judge Linda Marie Bell has agreed to hear 19.
The proceedings, technically neither a trial nor appeal, are expected to take all week before Bell decides whether Simpson deserves a new trial. It's not clear whether she'll rule immediately.
Some who've watched the Simpson saga say he might have a chance.
"I think there's a lot to this," said John Momot, a lawyer nearing 40 years of criminal defense in Las Vegas who played himself in the 1995 movie "Casino" and provided expert cable TV commentary during Simpson's monthlong trial in September 2008.
"I don't think O.J. Simpson could ever get a fair trial, period, based on his reputation from California," Momot said. "But based on these allegations, if you took Joe Jones from the street and put him in the same situation, I think it would be possible he'd get a new trial."
Ozzie Fumo, a veteran Las Vegas trial lawyer now representing Simpson, said it took two years of convincing by jailhouse lawyers at Nevada's Lovelock Correctional Center before Simpson broke with Galanter.
Simpson now says that Galanter not only knew ahead of time about his plan to retrieve what he thought were personal mementoes but met with Simpson in Las Vegas to discuss the plan the night before Simpson and five other men confronted two sports memorabilia dealers and a middleman in a cramped casino hotel room in September 2007.
Simpson maintains the plan was to take back what he expected would be family photos and personal belongings stolen from him after his 1995 "trial of the century" acquittal in the slayings of his wife and her friend in Los Angeles.
Galanter blessed the plan as within the law, as long as no one trespassed and no force was used, Simpson said.
During trial, Simpson contends Galanter "vigorously discouraged" him not to testify, and never told him that prosecutors were willing to let him plead guilty to charges that would have gotten him a minimum of two years in prison.
"He consistently told me the state could not prove its case because I acted within my rights in retaking my own property," Simpson said in a sworn statement outlining what he plans to say when he testifies this week.
Simpson's lawyers also say that while continuing to represent Simpson through oral arguments in a failed 2010 appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court, Galanter kept a lid on his own behind-the-scenes involvement. That nearly extinguished any chance Simpson had to claim ineffective representation in state or federal courts.
Simpson still says he had no idea two of the men with him brought guns to the hotel room. Palm and Fumo noted that the possibility of diminished perception wasn't raised at trial.
On Monday, Dr. Norman Roitman, a Las Vegas psychiatrist, is expected to testify that Simpson's perception of what took place in the Palace Station hotel room might have been hampered by football brain injuries and the effects of several vodka and cranberry juice cocktails he consumed before the confrontation.
H. Leon Simon, the chief deputy district attorney representing the state, is scheduled to call another psychiatrist later in the week for another opinion.
_____
Find Ken Ritter on Twitter: http://twitter.com/krttr
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/oj-hoping-trial-return-vegas-court-080715843.html
george washington carver king cake fun. hepatitis c symptoms david bradley david foster wallace pinterest
Running an online business? Then you need blogs as one of the arrows in your internet marketing quiver. There?s no better way to portray your business in a good way to both prospects and repeat customers alike. Following are a few of the best reasons why you can?t afford to ignore this tool and hope to achieve online success.
Image is everything in business and that applies on the Internet just as much as it did in the old brick and mortar days. With a blog, you can manage a business image much more effectively than with other mediums. For example, you can use a blog to tell potential clients about the company culture and even use the text to help clients get more familiar with the personal goings on in the business they might not otherwise see. Remember, this is the medium that can be updated more easily than traditional websites.
Starting out in business can be a costly affair and many small businesses want to keep an eye on costs when they?re first getting underway. Blogs are a cheap way of getting the word out on the goods and services you?ve got to sell. They work very well when combined with seo and a website, but can also be very effective as a stand alone internet marketing technique.
Blogs are also flexible. They can act like a newsletter, ebrochure, or in a number of other capacities. It doesn?t matter they way you choose to use them, having blogs as part of your business arsenal will increase your exposure and online sales.
Source: http://www.bloggingtips.com/2013/05/12/blogging-matters-business/
chevy volt christina hendricks camp david hawaii weather the jerk lake havasu halo 4
CLEVELAND (AP) ? Three women rescued from a house a decade after they disappeared said Sunday that they are happy to be home and pleaded for privacy so they can heal and reconnect with their family.
An attorney for the women also said they are extremely grateful for the support of family, law enforcement and the community.
Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight remain in seclusion and released their first statements since they were found May 6 after Berry escaped and called 911.
Ariel Castro is suspected of imprisoning the women inside his house for nine years or more, allowing them outside only a few moments, and raping them. A DNA test also confirmed that Castro fathered a 6-year-old girl who Berry gave birth to in the house. The girl escaped the house with Berry.
Castro is being held on $8 million bond. The 52-year-old former school bus driver was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape.
The women, now in their 20s and 30s, vanished separately between 2002 and 2004. At the time, they were 14, 16 and 20 years old.
Attorney Jim Wooley read statements attributed to all three women.
Knight, who was the first to disappear and the last of the three released from the hospital, said, "Thank you to everyone for your support and good wishes. I am healthy, happy and safe and will reach out to family, friends and supporters in good time."
Berry added: "Thank you so much for everything you're doing and continue to do. I am so happy to be home with my family."
And DeJesus, the youngest of the three, said: "I am so happy to be home, and I want to thank everybody for all your prayers. I just want time now to be with my family."
The Associated Press does not usually identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault, but the women's names were widely circulated by their families, friends and law enforcement authorities for years during their disappearances and after they were found.
The attorney for the women said none of them will do any media interviews until the criminal case against Castro is over. He also asked that they be given privacy.
"Give them the time, the space, and the privacy so that they can continue to get stronger," Wooley said.
Castro was represented at his first court appearance Thursday by public defender Kathleen Demetz, who said she can't speak to his guilt or innocence and advised him not to give any media interviews that might jeopardize his case.
Castro's two brothers, who were initially taken into custody but released Thursday after investigators said there was no evidence against them, told CNN that they fear people still believe they had something to do with the three missing women.
Onil and Pedro Castro said they've been getting death threats even after police decided to release them. Pedro Castro said he would have turned in his brother if he had known he was involved in the women's disappearance.
"Brother or no brother," he told CNN.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/women-rescued-cleveland-happy-home-144654384.html
nfl playoff picture Larry King Suzy Favor Hamilton mayan calendar end of the world end of the world december 21 2012
In this 2012 photo released by National Geographic Channels and Brian Catalina Entertainment, Dallas Seavey, center, shoots at a target as Tyrell Seavey, left, and Willi Prittie watch in Strandline Lake, Alaska. Dallas Seavey, who became the youngest Iditarod champion ever when he won the race in 2012, is among eight mushers or outdoor adventurers featured in the latest reality show set in Alaska. "Ultimate Survival Alaska" premieres Sunday on NatGeoTV. (AP Photo/National Geographic Channels, Stewart Volland)
In this 2012 photo released by National Geographic Channels and Brian Catalina Entertainment, Dallas Seavey, center, shoots at a target as Tyrell Seavey, left, and Willi Prittie watch in Strandline Lake, Alaska. Dallas Seavey, who became the youngest Iditarod champion ever when he won the race in 2012, is among eight mushers or outdoor adventurers featured in the latest reality show set in Alaska. "Ultimate Survival Alaska" premieres Sunday on NatGeoTV. (AP Photo/National Geographic Channels, Stewart Volland)
In this 2012 photo released by National Geographic Channels and Brian Catalina Entertainment, Tyrell Seavey, Dallas Seavey and Willi Prittie cross the Triumvirate Glacier in Alaska. Dallas Seavey, who became the youngest Iditarod champion ever when he won the race in 2012, is among eight mushers or outdoor adventurers featured in the latest reality show set in Alaska. "Ultimate Survival Alaska" premieres Sunday on NatGeoTV. (AP Photo/National Geographic Channels, Stewart Volland)
In this 2012 photo released by National Geographic Channels and Brian Catalina Entertainment, Dallas Seavey coils up rope in Arrigetch Peaks, Alaska. Seavey, who became the youngest Iditarod champion ever when he won the race in 2012, is among eight mushers or outdoor adventurers featured in the latest reality show set in Alaska. "Ultimate Survival Alaska" premieres Sunday on NatGeoTV. (AP Photo/Brian Catalina Entertainment, Brian Skope)
In this 2012 photo released by National Geographic Channels and Brian Catalina Entertainment, Dallas Seavey, Willi Prittie, Tyrell Seavey, Brent Sass, Austin Manelick, Marty Raney, Tyler Johnson and Matt Raney, from left, pose for a photo in Alaska. The eight mushers or outdoor adventurers will be featured in the latest reality show set in Alaska. "Ultimate Survival Alaska" premieres Sunday on NatGeoTV. (AP Photo/National Geographic Channels, Stewart Volland)
In this 2012 photo released by National Geographic Channels and Brian Catalina Entertainment, Dallas Seavey, right, sits with his brother Tyrell Seavey at a campsite in Arrigetch Peaks, Alaska. Dallas Seavey, who became the youngest Iditarod champion ever when he won the race in 2012, is among eight mushers or outdoor adventurers featured in the latest reality show set in Alaska. "Ultimate Survival Alaska" premieres Sunday on NatGeoTV. (AP Photo/Brian Catalina Entertainment, Brian Skope)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) ? Dallas Seavey knows what it's like to mush across the wilds of Alaska. Now it remains to be seen how he survives being dropped off in the middle of that wilderness and navigates his way out without the help of a dog team.
Seavey, 26, who became the youngest Iditarod champion ever when he won the 1,000-mile sled dog race across Alaska last year, is among eight mushers or outdoor adventurers featured in the latest reality show set in Alaska.
"Ultimate Survival Alaska" premieres Sunday (10 p.m. EST) on the National Geographic Channel.
"We took eight of the toughest outdoorsmen in Alaska and actually did something that was true to the nature of National Geographic," Seavey said. "Anybody who appreciates the outdoors is going to enjoy the show."
In each episode, the eight participants are taken by plane or helicopter to a different part of Alaska. They must find their way to a pre-arranged landing zone within three days, fighting the harshest elements the state puts in their way, from bears, mountains and raging rivers to guiding their way along a glacier. Spoiler alert: It's not easy.
In the first episode, titled "Arctic Hell," the men are dropped off in the Brooks Range, in northern Alaska above the Arctic Circle, and must make their way almost 50 miles on foot to Takahula Lake.
The men break off into three teams, with brothers Dallas and Tyrell Seavey choosing to take a barren ridgeline to the lake. Mountain guide Willi Prittie, musher Brent Sass and explorer Tyler Johnson decide to travel the high mountain route only to find wolves blocking part of their path.
Mountain guide Marty Raney and his son, survival expert Matt, along with wilderness guide Austin Manelick choose the most direct route, through a river valley, but have to contend with the swift-moving river and swamps.
All eight outdoorsmen are expected to live off the land for any food beyond the two pounds of rice and beans they carry.
Manelick, 24, supplemented his diet by eating a live wood frog. "I wish I could find some more," he said, and so might viewers after his next culinary choice ? snarfing down cranberries he picked out of bear scat.
"A little bit tart," he says.
Future episodes will have the men competing in two teams and building rafts to take down the mighty Yukon River, the nation's third longest river. Another episode has the men rappelling down a cliff on a summit in the snow-capped Tordrillo Mountains, then traveling eight miles over the Triumvirate Glacier.
The series was filmed over two and a half months last fall in 10 locations in the vast state.
For Tyrell Seavey, 28, the series was a chance for him to reconnect with his younger brother. A decade ago, they dreamed of doing things like this but couldn't because they had to spend two- to three hours a day cleaning up after the dogs at their home in Seward, Alaska. Their father, Mitch Seavey, won the Iditarod in 2004 and this year became the sport's oldest champion at the age of 53.
"As Alaskans, we sure talk about doing all this stuff, but who does all these things, visits all these places?" Tyrell Seavey said.
Both Dallas Seavey and Sass, a Minnesota native who was the Iditarod rookie of the year in 2012, said their experiences from the race helped prepare them for the survival challenge.
"The sleep deprivation, pain tolerance we endure and the constant problem solving we do during the race was a great prep for the show," Sass said in an email to The Associated Press.
Associated Press2012 Olympics Chad Everett London Olympics Kristen Stewart Rupert Sanders Photos 2016 Olympics TD Bank mountain lion
By Iain Rogers MADRID, May 11 (Reuters) - When Lionel Messi pulled on the captain's armband in the 63rd minute of Barcelona's 3-1 win over Rayo Vallecano in March, it was the first time since his 2004 debut he had led the Spanish champions in a La Liga game. Andres Iniesta's substitution meant the Argentine World Player of the Year, still only 25, was the most senior player on the pitch, and leadership responsibility was a new asset to his game to add to the incredible goalscoring exploits that have propelled Barca to a fourth La Liga title in five years. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/why-irs-abruptly-apologized-tea-party-205524966.html
dominos dominos Perez Hilton Michelle Obama Oscars Wissam Al Mana seth macfarlane oscar winners
The brothers of accused kidnapper and rapist Ariel Castro have broken their public silence, giving CNN what's billed as an exclusive sit-down interview about the case.
Pedro, 54, and Onil Casto, 50, told CNN's Martin Savidge that they had no knowledge of their 52-year-old brother's alleged crimes.
"It?s going to haunt me down because people going to think, 'Yeah, Pedro got something to do with this,'" Pedro Castro said in an excerpt from the interview released Sunday. "And Pedro don?t have nothing to do with this. If I knew, I would have reported it?brother or no brother.?
The full interview with the brothers will air Monday, one week after three women?Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus?were freed from Ariel Castro's west Cleveland home where they were beaten and raped over a decade of captivity, police say. Berry's six-year-old daughter, who police say was fathered by Ariel Castro, was also rescued.
The women had several miscarriages during their captivity, police said.
All three brothers were arrested on Monday. Pedro and Onil were questioned and held on on outstanding misdemeanors. They were released on Thursday. Ariel Castro was charged with four counts of kidnapping and three counts of rape. He is being held on $8 million bail and is currently on suicide watch.
In 2012, as excavating crews dug through an empty lot in the neighborhood looking for Berry's remains, Pedro Castro told a local news crew that the search for the missing girl was "a waste of money."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/pedro-castro-onil-cleveland-interview-132025979.html
j lo j lo sacha baron cohen ryan seacrest octavia spencer meryl streep oscars school shooting ohio billy crystal
May 10, 2013 at 10:20 AM ET
You might think that as a psychic who channels spiritual messages, Theresa Caputo would have had a premonition long ago that her TLC series "Long Island Medium," would turn out to be a hit. But as it gets set to enter its fourth season, Caputo admits the success caught her by surprise.
"I never thought in a million years," she told TODAY's Natalie Morales and Billy Bush Friday. "I thought I was going to do a couple of episodes. I was still booking appointments, and I thought I was going to go on with my little life."
Okay, so you can't catch everything, particularly when you're focused on locating messages sent from the great beyond to their loved ones still here in the real world. And Caputo acknowledges there are skeptics out there who don't believe she's really contacting the dearly departed. "First of all, I say to all the skeptics ... it is what it is. Come and witness and speak to the people that have had the experience with me," she said.
But if those messages coming from beyond are less than positive, Caputo says she probably won't send them forward. "I would just say to the spirit, 'I only want the highest good of all concerned,'" she said. "We always have to deliver messages with love and levity."
"Long Island Medium" returns to TLC on Sunday, May 12 at 8 p.m.
camilla belle instagram Robert Bork mark sanchez christina aguilera Mayan End Of The World Olivia Black
LAKEPORT, Calif. (AP) ? Scott and Robin Spivey had a sinking feeling that something was wrong with their home when cracks began snaking across their walls in March.
The cracks soon turned into gaping fractures, and within two weeks their 600-square-foot garage broke from the house and the entire property ? manicured lawn and all ? dropped 10 feet below the street.
It wasn't long before the houses on both sides collapsed as the ground gave way in the Spivey's neighborhood in Lake County, about 100 miles north of San Francisco.
"We want to know what is going on here," said Scott Spivey, a former city building inspector who had lived in his four-bedroom, Tudor-style dream home for 11 years.
Eight homes are now abandoned and 10 more are under notice of imminent evacuation as a hilltop with sweeping vistas of Clear Lake and the Mount Konocti volcano swallows the subdivision built 30 years ago.
The situation has gotten so bad that mail delivery was ended to keep carriers out of danger.
"It's a slow-motion disaster," said Randall Fitzgerald, a writer who bought his home in the Lakeside Heights project a year ago.
Unlike sinkholes of Florida that can gobble homes in an instant, this collapse in hilly volcanic country can move many feet on one day and just a fraction of an inch the next.
Officials believe water that has bubbled to the surface is playing a role in the destruction. But nobody can explain why suddenly there is plentiful water atop the hill in a county with groundwater shortages.
"That's the big question," said Scott De Leon, county public works director. "We have a dormant volcano, and I'm certain a lot of things that happen here (in Lake County) are a result of that, but we don't know about this."
Other development on similar soil in the county is stable, county officials said.
While some of the subdivision movement is occurring on shallow fill, De Leon said a geologist has warned that the ground could be compromised down to bedrock 25 feet below and that cracks recently appeared in roads well beyond the fill.
"Considering this is a low rainfall year and the fact it's letting go now after all of these years, and the magnitude that it's letting go, well it's pretty monumental," De Leon said.
County officials have inspected the original plans for the project and say it was developed by a reputable engineering firm then signed off on by the public works director at the time.
"I can only presume that they were checked prior to approval," De Leon said.
The sinkage has prompted county crews to redirect the subdivision's sewage 300 feet through an overland pipe as manholes in the 10-acre development collapsed.
Consultant Tom Ruppenthal found two small leaks in the county water system that he said weren't big enough to account for the amount of water that is flowing along infrastructure pipes and underground fissures, but they could be contributing to another source.
"It's very common for groundwater to shift its course," said Ruppenthal of Utility Services Associates in Seattle. "I think the groundwater has shifted."
If the county can't get the water and sewer service stabilized, De Leon said all 30 houses in the subdivision will have to be abandoned.
The owners of six damaged homes said they need help from the government.
The Lake County Board of Supervisors asked Gov. Jerry Brown to declare an emergency so funding might be available to stabilize utilities and determine the cause of the collapse. On May 6, state Sen. Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, wrote a letter of support asking Brown for immediate action. The California Emergency Management Agency said Brown was still assessing the situation.
On Wednesday, the state sent a water resources engineer and a geologist to look at the problem. Sen. Dianne Feinstein sent a representative the next day.
Lake County, with farms, wineries and several Indian casinos, was shaped by earthquake fault movement and volcanic explosions that helped create the Coast Ranges of California. Clear Lake, popular for boating and fishing, is the largest fresh water lake wholly located in the state.
It is not unusual for groundwater in the region to make its way to the surface then subside. Many natural hot springs and geysers receded underground in the early 1900s and have since been tapped for geothermal power.
Homeowners now wonder whether fissures have opened below their hilltop, allowing water to seep to the surface. But they're so perplexed they also talk about the land being haunted and are considering asking the local Native American tribe if the hilltop was an ancient graveyard.
"Someone said it must be hexed," said Blanka Doren, a 72-year-old German immigrant who poured her life savings into the house she bought in 1999 so she could live on the rental income.
The home shares a wall with her neighbor, Jagtar Singh ? who had two days of notice to move his wife, 4-year-old daughter and his parents before the hill behind the back of his home collapsed ? taking the underside of his house and leaving the carpet dangling.
Doren is afraid that as Singh's house falls it will take hers with it. Already cracks have spread across her floors.
Damaged houses in the subdivision have been tagged for mandatory removal, but the hillside is so unstable it can't support the heavy equipment necessary to perform the job.
"This was our first home," said Singh, who noticed a problem in April when he could see light between the wall and floor of his bedroom. A geotechnical company offered no solutions.
"We didn't know it would be that major, but in one week we were gone," he said.
So far insurance companies have left the owners of the homes ? valued between $200,000 and $250,000, or twice the median price in the county ? dangling too. Subsidence is not covered, homeowners said. So until someone figures out whether something else is going on, they'll be in limbo.
"It's a tragedy, really," contractor Dean Pick said as he took photos for an insurance company. "I've never seen anything like it. At least that didn't have the Pacific Ocean eating away at it."
___
To reach Tracie Cone: www.twitter.com/TConeAP
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/one-one-homes-calif-subdivision-sinking-162144171.html
Anne Hathaway Wardrobe Malfunction Adrienne Maloof Telemundo real housewives of beverly hills Pink Floyd 12 12 12 Concert amazing race
You?ll increase your savings and peace of mind by if you cut auto and insurance costs -- and quit footing the bill for your grown kids
By Catey Hill
Financial experts throw around a bunch of guesstimates about how much you?ll need to save for retirement, but one thing is certain: The more you can keep costs down once you stop working full time, the better off you?ll be.
Here are five retirement expenses that financial advisers and professors say you might want to drop:
1. Your second car or luxury car Do you and your spouse really need one or two fancy autos once you retire? After all, luxury car payments can easily run $500 a month, which amounts to $12,000 or more over a two-year period.
If you?re nearing retirement, there?s a decent chance you own at least one pricey car. TrueCar.com, an auto-selling site, found that boomers account for 56 percent of Mercedes-Benz buyers, for example, and 55 percent of Jaguar and Porsche owners.
(MORE: The Retirement Topic Nobody Likes to Talk About)
Javid Jaraiedi, founder of the Jaraiedi Financial Group in Lawrenceville, N.J., says you might want to replace a deluxe model with a more modest auto. ?Maybe you have one nice car to drive to parties and things like that and one less expensive car to take grocery shopping and on errands,? Jaraiedi says.
How to drop the expense One option is to sell your second car and replace it with a used auto. (Edmunds.com has useful advice on how to get the best price.)
Not only will your car payments drop, you may save hundreds of dollars a year on insurance because you might not need comprehensive coverage on a used car, Jaraiedi says. Comprehensive coverage reimburses you for incidents other than collisions, like damages if your auto is stolen. You may also want to drop collision coverage for an older car with little value.
Alternatively, you could try ditching the second car altogether, especially if you and your spouse expect to do most things together in retirement.
If you?re a little nervous about managing with one vehicle, consider joining a car-sharing service, says Lynn Ballou, the managing principal of Ballou Plum Wealth Advisors in Lafayette, Calif.
Zipcar, for instance, lets you rent its vehicles for between one hour and four days; its rates depend on where you live.
Hertz offers a similar hourly car-rental service, called Hertz on Demand 24/7, in about a dozen major U.S. cities.
2. High insurance costs Many people retire and hang on to all their insurance policies, but that can be a costly mistake, Ballou says.
For one thing, you may no longer need life insurance or disability insurance, she says, and ditching them could save you hundreds of dollars annually.
If you don?t have any dependents who?d need financial help after you died, you probably don?t need life insurance in retirement. If you aren?t working anymore, you can likely skip disability insurance.
(MORE: How to Make Your Retirement Money Last)
Those aren?t the only ways you can save on insurance in retirement, though. ?A lot of people still have their homeowners deductibles and auto insurance deductibles set very low in retirement,? Ballou says. But many retirees have enough in savings to switch to higher deductibles and self-insure against small losses.
Upping your deductibles will lower your premiums and might put hundreds of dollars back in your pocket.
How to drop the expense If you -- and your financial adviser, if you have one -- decide you can scrap your disability and life policies, call your insurers to cancel them. Understand, however, the process may be more complicated than you think.
For example, if you have cash value in a life insurance policy, you should examine the tax consequences before dropping the coverage. ?If you cancel, you might take a tax hit,? Ballou says. Once you surrender the policy, you?ll owe taxes on its tax-deferred earnings.
Rather than canceling the policy altogether, Ballou says, you may want to avoid the taxes by swapping life insurance for an annuity through what?s known as a tax-free exchange. If this idea seems appealing, discuss it with a financial adviser.
You should also call your homeowners and auto insurers to investigate raising the deductibles on your policies. Once you learn what your premiums would be at different deductible thresholds, visit an insurance price-comparison site, like Netquote.com or Insurance.com, to get competing quotes.
3. Your home If you?re still living in the house where you raised your kids and built up memories, you may be reluctant to sell it. But your home could be a money pit that also won?t be suitable as you age, says Kenn Tacchino, co-director of the New York Life Center for Retirement Income at American College.
You may also be paying the steep property taxes that go with living in a great school district, even though you no longer have school-age kids. Your home could be socking you with high utility costs as well. The combination of taxes and utility bills could cost you thousands or tens of thousands each year.
(MORE: How to Avoid Living Unhappily Ever After in Retirement)
The house might be difficult for you physically in retirement, too. Its multilevel steps could be tough on your knees and, if you live in a cold climate, you could endanger your heart by shoveling the walk and driveway.
How to drop the expense In a word, downsize. ?Look for a smaller home that offers one-floor living and doesn?t require maintenance that comes with things like a large yard or pool,? Tacchino says.
Even if you?re not quite ready to sell, start thinking about the feasibility of maintaining your home in retirement.
If you just can?t bring yourself to move out, consider bringing in an aging-in-place specialist to retrofit the home and lower its maintenance expenses. The National Association of Home Builders has a directory of certified aging-in-place specialists on its site.
4. Your landline A home phone typically costs $15 to $75 per month, according to CostHelper.com, which can set you back between $180 and $900 a year. But if you have decent cell phone reception in your home, you might want to cut the cord and save the landline?s expense, Ballou says.
How to drop the expense Call your home phone provider and ask to cancel your service. Then shop around for competitive cell phone rates at a site like BillShrink.com.
The average monthly cell phone bill is about $47 per month, according to CTIA-The Wireless Association, a nonprofit that studies the wireless communications industry. But you might qualify for lower rates depending on the number of users in your plan and your data, text and minutes usage.
5. Your adult children OK, this may sound overly harsh. But the truth is that it may be wise to stop paying the bills for your grown kids once you?re retired.
Nearly 6 in 10 parents (59 percent), however, are currently providing financial support to their adult children who aren?t in college, according to the National Endowment for Financial Education. They?re paying living expenses, like rent and monthly bills, as well as providing spending money.
?Some parents spend thousands of dollars each month on their adult kids,? says Douglas Goldstein, president of investment services at Profile Investment Services in Jerusalem, a financial firm specializing in U.S. investment accounts.
If you?re assisting your grown children but haven?t saved enough to ensure that your retirement is comfortable, Goldstein says, ask yourself: Am I prepared to move in with my children later in life when I can?t afford my lifestyle? Are they prepared for that?
How to drop the expense When your adult child needs help covering the basics, consider letting him or her live with you for a while until landing a job, rather than shelling out thousands a year on rent.
As for non-essentials, from a new car to extra spending money, Goldstein's advice is straightforward: Just say no. For instance, if you?re still paying for your adult child?s cell phone service, isn?t it about time to scrap that expense and let your son or daughter foot the bill?
Talk to your children about your financial situation in retirement so they'll understand that you truly can?t afford to keep handing them cash, Goldstein says. And don?t allow yourself to lend them money. ?You may never see it again,? he says.
Earlier on Huff/Post50:
"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/11/retirement-planning-cut-expenses_n_3224504.html
Of Monsters and Men boxing news mint julep silk Star Wars Cinco De Mayo History lindsay lohan
